Indiana Jones Lottery Tickets

I've been trying to think of something clever to say about these Indiana Jones Lottery Tickets.

But sometimes the juice just isn't there. I just thought they were neat. I don't know that I've ever seen a movie-tie in lottery ticket. But I never play the lottery so maybe they happen all the time.

I wanted to get one of each of the four (one for each movie) and the $5.00 price tag just barely allowed me. Unfortunately I got 2 Temple of Dooms and zero Last Crusades. Although if I were to look on the bright side, I could say that Temple is arguably the best of the series. Plus it was the only winning ticket in the lot. Five cool buckaroos.

...Making my total lottery winnings: negative fifteen dollars. Where's that Star Trek slot machine when you need it?

Let's Roll

As I've stated before, when it comes to Super Hero food products, fruit snacks are usually a fairly pedestrian offering. But this summer's disgraceful lack of Iron Man edibles and a seemingly similarly low Dark Knight nosh turnout have left us with little options on the fanboy aisle at the grocery store.

Since beggars can't be chooser we must look on the bright side of our ever dwindling grocery lists. Sure there's nothing new about Fruit Roll Ups...but Fruit Roll Ups with a gimmick? Fruit Roll Ups with the flimsiest of premises masquerading as a high concept RPG? Well sir, that's a horse of a different color.

Get acquainted with Batman Battle Rolls Fruit Roll Ups:

I know, I know, it seems like every other crappy Fruit Roll Up you've never been interested in. But at the very least they made the tiniest effort to break away from the pack. It's a game, you see.

But the most challenging part of the game seems to happen before you even get started. I don't know if fruit Roll Ups have always been this hard to unroll or if there is a special trick to it that just escapes me but my first several attempts at de-packaging ended up looking like this:

It's hard to have a "battle" with results like that.

After finally getting a couple out of their plastic cocoons, it was game on...and here's the playing board:

At first glance I'm sure we all had the same reaction: "Wow, that looks like blood splattered human flesh." Hungry, yet?

Ok, so the rules, as I understand them, are simple: Tear your "Batman Battle Rolls Fruit Roll Ups" in two (for some reason). Then add up each character's points and whichever side has the most points "wins."

Also, in the game's defense I spent about four seconds trying to figure out how to play so I could have just completely fabricated the above rules. So how did I do, you ask?

Round 1:
Evil: Joker Bomb, 5 points vs. Good: Gotham City, 1 point
Evil: Scarecrow, 7 points vs. Good: Batarang, 7 points

WINNER: Evil!!!

Round 2:
Evil: The Joker's Motto, 6 points vs. Good: Rachel, 0 points (The box seems to indicate that Rachel has 4 points but for the life of me I couldn't find any kind of points on the actual fruit roll up. Plus the character always seemed pretty pointless to me so, zero it is.)
Evil: TwoFace, 8 points vs. Good: Batman, 10 points

WINNER: Evil!!

At this point in the "game" I was pretty bored and thought I had more than enough to fill a blog entry so I called it quits. What can we learn form this? When it come to Fruit Roll Ups, evil always wins.

BONUS: By the way, I also came across a new case of Batman Bottled Water, so here's one for your "looking at" pleasure:

Petrified

One of the single most driving forces in humanities' quest for knowledge and understanding is the yearning to understand the origins of man. While scientists and theologians may snipe and bicker about the details of early man, a bold theory has been put forth in Custer, South Dakota. A re-creation showing not just primitive man but his social structure, community and, yes, his foot-powered cars.

Welcome to Bedrock City.


The Black Hills area of South Dakota has always been a huge draw for tourists with Mount Rushmore being the main draw. But, while impressive, four faces alone can't hold the attention of today's traveler for more than an afternoon. So the area surrounding the monument has a dense amount of attractions and whatnots all competing for the tourist dollar.

Sure Gator Farms and Mystery Spots abound but for my money, stop #1 revolves around the modern stone age family.


Flintstones...meet the Flintstones. Yeah the gang's all here at this 30 acre park and campground. As far as attractions go it's a little odd in that the main activity is to walk around and look at stuff. But since that's really the only thing I like to do anyway, I was pleased.


Fred, Wilma, Barney, Betty and the kids are all present and accounted for in fiberglass form and sometimes in "hand shaking costumed character" form. But Bedrock is a much larger and bustling metropolis than I recall from Saturday morning viewings. And characters and locations that you might not remember are also there. Like the Bedrock City Fire Hall:

I don't remember too many episodes of the Flintstones where stuff caught on fire...especially since everything in town seemed to be made of rock...but that doesn't mean that BCFD doesn't remain eternally vigilante.

Now as I mentioned before, the area's main draw is Mount Rushmore and there seems to be some type of South Dakota state ordinance that every tourist attraction in the area must pay homage in some way to the monument. Bedrock City is not exempt so let me introduce you to Mount Rockmore:

Fred? Check. Barney? Check. Dino? Ok. Some random guy? Well, he's there too. It seems sexism was rife in the stone age. Surely Wilma or Betty deserve a place on the Mount Rockmore more than the family pet or...some guy.

I guess cave women still had a lot to prove back in the day. You've come a long way baby.


As I visited I wondered how popular the Flintstones are with today's kids. There was a theater there that showed non-stop Flintstones cartoons but it seemed like the not-so-sublte nods to the Honeymooners were lost on the Harry Potter crowd. Their loss I guess.

The one cartoon I wanted to see wasn't shown though:


Now that's some smooth stone aged flavor.

Find Bedrock City online at:
http://www.flintstonesbedrockcity.com/